ABSTRACT
133The ‘deliberative democracy’ literature that has emerged during the last decade has very little to say about decision making and nothing new to offer to debates about models of representative government. What it does offer is an account of how important it is to develop inclusive and vibrant informal public spheres for deliberation, to supplement the formal institutions of representative government. It doesn’t even, I suggest, offer a sustained account about how these informal public spheres are to engage with the formal public sphere of government.
